James Frey is moving on from his drugs and booze-soaked memoirs to write the third book of the Bible, in which his version of Jesus will perform gay marriages.

Actually, having gotten over the incongruity of it all, I have to say that I can’t fault the concept of the book (“My idea of what the Messiah would be like if he were walking the streets of New York today”). After all, Frey would be far from the first to muse on the personality of Jesus. Alison Flood, who wrote the article, mentions a couple of similar, recent works, including Michel Faber’s The Fire Gospel, which has an awfully earthy Jesus.

And, grudgingly, I have to admit that I admire Frey’s artistic fearlessness. Though I do wonder if, now that he’s been permanently cast as publishing’s black sheep, he’s just embracing the role and trying to piss off as many people as possible. (Just read the last line of the Guardian article.) And, by that standard, the Gospel According to James Frey looks very promising indeed.

Lynn: Renowned author Paul Fleischman is a man on a mission. He wants teens to look beyond their own “internal movie,” beyond the dazzling technological changes in our world to the side effects and huge environmental problems we face. Using in-your-face, blunt language in Eyes Wide Open: Going Beyond the Environmental Headlines (2014), Fleischman sets about […]

Lynn: As an educator, a parent, and a grandparent, one of my goals has been to fan the flames of curiosity in kids. It’s a critical trait and one that often seems to get squashed somewhere along the K-12 march. I love books that encourage kids to ask questions. Marc Aronson’s books always seem to […]

Lynn and Cindy: While shapes are a common subject for picture books, it is still a pleasure to find new ones that are both fun and instructive for young readers. If it were left to us, we’d throw out all the boring textbooks for the primary grades and stock them with fabulous picture books. See—educational reform […]

Lynn: Renowned author Paul Fleischman is a man on a mission. He wants teens to look beyond their own “internal movie,” beyond the dazzling technological changes in our world to the side effects and huge environmental problems we face. Using in-your-face, blunt language in Eyes Wide Open: Going Beyond the Environmental Headlines (2014), Fleischman sets about […]

Lynn: As an educator, a parent, and a grandparent, one of my goals has been to fan the flames of curiosity in kids. It’s a critical trait and one that often seems to get squashed somewhere along the K-12 march. I love books that encourage kids to ask questions. Marc Aronson’s books always seem to […]

Lynn and Cindy: While shapes are a common subject for picture books, it is still a pleasure to find new ones that are both fun and instructive for young readers. If it were left to us, we’d throw out all the boring textbooks for the primary grades and stock them with fabulous picture books. See—educational reform […]